What Would YOU Ask a SharePoint General Manager?


Posted @ 8/10/2010 12:00 AM By Caroline Marwitz

 
I think I was in an elevator at a conference when someone who looked like Microsoft's then SharePoint general manager, Tom Rizzo, stepped in. Only after we'd ridden five floors down in silence did I think to clear my throat and ask him if he WAS Tom Rizzo, for starters, but before I could, the elevator stopped and he got out and that was the end of it.

Now that Eric Swift has taken on the general manager position of SharePoint product management, I'm thinking with this fall's plethora of conferences such as Connections, I should be prepared in case I share yet another silent elevator ride with yet another SharePoint executive. And of course, if YOU go to Connections, you might want to get your thoughts focused ahead of time too--you never know who you'll be riding an elevator with.

So what would you want to ask him about SharePoint? Would it be a "Why did you guys...." kind of question? Or would it be a "What are you guys...." kind of question? Would it be about licensing? future products rolling in to SharePoint? changes? fixes? I'm keeping a list, checking it twice--email me at cmarwitz at windowsitpro.com.

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  • Posted @ September 23, 2010 01:19 PM by Kevin Nolan

    Well first off Eric Swift would be the only general manager that works for MS I might recognize because of the video they provided at the launch. How do you know who works for Microsoft as a general manager if you saw them I can't find a place where the "credits" are listed for SharePoint all I know of is the faceless "SharePoint Team" who I admire and respect (shameless kissing up I know) Where would you find this info? I am headed to the Dev Connections event in November so I would like to know just in case I run into one of them at a poker table or elevator..

    http://www.devconnections.com/shows/FALL2010SP/default.asp?s=154

  • Posted @ September 22, 2010 07:47 AM by carlosmeneses

    Here is my 22 cents....
    I am doing my best to sell this extraordinary platform to potential users within my organization, who can benefit from it. I always insist on the increased productivity levels that they would experience upon adopting SharePoint (no more shared folders, duplicate documents, and things like that), not to mention the associated metadata and other powerful features that come with the product.
    I have been excited about the new features of SP 2010 (unfortunately there is not too much documentation out there yet). However, I've had the opportunity to evaluate the product in a test server environment that a friend of mine put together for me, and it really looks promising to an extent (I might be wrong, maybe it's my lack of knowledge of it) but I observed a couple of details that Microsoft left unattended. 1) The user interface (aka the ribbon) was designed for developers in mind, not for regular users; 2) To do simple things like removing "the recently changed documents or components" the regular user has to become a developer to understand a piece of code to be included in a CEWP to remove this annoying quick launch menu options (could'nt Microsoft just include this as a clickable option somewhere instead?). Again, I evangelize SharePoint, I have been doing it since its early versions 2003, 2007 and now 2010; However, Microsoft does not seem to get it yet! What it really counts at the end of the day, it is to empower the end user to do things with simplicity, if you really want to foster a collaboration environment. I guess, at the end of the day the questions would be a combination of "Why did you guys did not take into account the end user experience in SP 2010?", or "What are you guys doing at the Central Administration level with all those "error messages recommended fixes" that are useless?" Thanks for listening.

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